Architecture for efficient monitoring and management of sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks are poised to increase the efficiency of many military and civil applications, such as disaster management. Typically sensors collect data about their surrounding and forward that data to a command center, either directly or through a base-station. Due to inhospitable conditions, these sensors are not always deployed uniformly in an area of interest and some sensors can be unreachable because they are too distant from the base-station or simply because there exist obstacles in their path. This paper focuses on reducing the sensitivity of the operation and monitoring of sensor networks to the ambiguity of the propagation model of the radio signal. We define 'agent' sensors, which monitor the health and relay messages to and from unreachable sensors. We form groups of sensors around these agents while considering the load on each agent. An energy-aware routing of data collected by and relayed by these agents is performed. Our approach localizes communication which reduces the amount of sensor energy expended in transmission, enables efficient monitoring of sensor resources and health status and allows optimal management of deployed sensors for increased network lifetime. The approach is validated by the simulation results.